Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of medical bandages. More specifically, the present invention is related to a unique multi-functional bandage in pre-hospital emergency situations such as civilian condition, disaster, conflict area, warfare and other military applications that target uncontrolled bleeding while preventing ischemia, inflammations, necrosis, pathogen and toxic substrate passage through the bandage.
Discussion of Prior Art
Currently, there are a variety of bandages available on the market to be used in pre-hospital and hospital emergency situations as a first-aid device to stop bleeding from hemorrhagic, amputate or crush wounds caused by traumatic injuries. In recent years, trauma-related mortality of 58% in warfare is due to extremity (e.g. arms, legs, head) injuries as reported in “WIA wounded areas” published unclassified by the U.S. Army on 19 Mar. 2003-18 May 2004. The applicators in the field, therefore, appreciate a bandage—additionally to other functions disclosed here in this application—having the capability of taking the shape of the body and immobilize itself once placed over the wounded area without extra support. This would make it easier—if not possible—to start bandaging with one-hand especially in the following hard-to-bandage areas besides the extremities: axillar, inguinal, buttock, abdominal, and thoracic areas.
However, only a limited percentage of these bandages are available for pre-hospital emergency situations such as accidents, falling down, catastrophic disaster, conflict area, occupational accident and warfare. More particularly, such prior art bandages suffer from at least one of the following shortcomings, if not all:
1. the prior art bandages fail to optimize physical properties of the construction of the bandage fabric by means of stress-strain curves, and as a results of the lack of such optimization, majority of the bandages on the market either cannot stop bleeding or, in case they do, cause ischemia and/or necrosis due to overpressure;
2. the prior art bandages are often impractical as majority of the bandages on the market today are formed by discrete pieces, requiring such discrete pieces to be assembled together by either a single user utilizing both his/her hands or by two users;
3. the prior art bandages lack a mechanism that offers bio-protection of the wound from the environment as none of the emergency bandages available on the market today can properly isolate the wound from a variety of pathogens, such as microbes and/or viruses;
4. the prior art bandages also lack an optimal mechanism to help stop bleeding as majority of the bandages on the market today do not employ mechanisms promoting blood clotting, as such prior art bandages prevent bleeding by merely applying pressure, which is problematic as mentioned previously in bullet item (1); even in the few cases that have mechanisms to promote blood clotting, such mechanisms are limited to organic substances, which is a contributing factor to limiting the life time of such a bandage.
5. the prior art bandages lack elastic immobilization stripes around the wound dressing, making it difficult for one-handed application, which renders vital in the field.
6 none of the prior art bandages has optimized and unified all three functions in a single design such as optimization of i) physical properties by means of stress-strain curve and anti-slip stripes, ii) addition of anti-microbial chemical properties, iii) together with incorporating biological properties of pathogen and harmful substrate blocking/trapping as well as of contributing factor to stop bleeding.
The following references are all representative of the prior art mentioned above and suffer from the shortcomings mentioned above.
The patent application to Grau (U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,723) discloses an emergency bandage with an apparatus allowing the user to apply pressure onto the wound and change the bandaging direction abruptly by a single hand.
The patent to Ma et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,462,753) provides for a nano-silver wound dressing. In Ma et al., the dressing comprises a skin contact layer, a disinfected antitoxic layer of activated charcoal cloth impregnated with nano-crystalline silver, an isolation layer of a composite fabric having a very small pore size that provides a barrier to bacterial penetration, and an elastic bandage.
The patent to Bechert et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,605,298) provides for a Wound Covering. In Bechert, the wound covering comprises an absorbent matrix of non-woven material having nano-scale silver that contacts the wound and a gas-permeable, liquid impermeable layer 14.
The patent to Dubrow et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 8,025,960) provides for porous substrates, articles, systems and compositions comprising nano-fibers and methods of their use and production. In Dubrow et al., the bandage comprises a flexible porous substrate strip having a nano-fiber coating (wherein the nano-fibers comprises antimicrobial materials, such as ZnO) and a protective pad which provides the contact surface for the wound.
The patent to Daniels et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 8,304,595) provides for a resorbable nano-enhanced hemostatic structures and bandage materials. In Daniels et al., the bandage comprises bandage material and nanoparticles which are provided to assist clotting and slow down the bleeding.
The patent application publication to Villanueva et al. (US 2007/0141130) provides for a wound or surgical dressing. In Villanueva et al., the bandage comprises a base layer of non-woven sheet or film and a substrate, such as an absorbent pad, positioned in the center of the base layer, the pad having a bacteriostatic composition applied thereto to trap bacteria, pathogens, microbes, etc., wherein the bacteriostatic composition may be an ammonium salt that is embedded within the fibers of the pad.
The patent application publication to Lin et al. (US 2012/0064145) provides for a Wound Dressing. In Lin et al., the double-layer wound dressing comprises an outer polymer material layer containing antibacterial material 11 to function as a bacterial barrier, and a porous carbon material layer having epithelial cells therein to promote wound healing.
The patent to Siniaguine (U.S. Pat. No. 8,237,009) discloses a wound covering comprising a topmost dressing layer fabricated of a non-woven mesh of polymer microfibers and a second layer of non-woven microfiber mesh having a very small pore size sufficient to form a microbe impermeable layer.
The patent application publication to Jung et al. (US 2012/0027681) discloses utilizing carbon nanostructures to deliver a target agent, such as sialic acid, which can be used to target various viruses.
The patent application publication to Vasilev et al. (US 2012/0107592) discloses using copper, silver or gold nano-particles in a wound dressing.
Whatever the precise merits, features, and advantages of the above cited references, none of them achieves or fulfills the purposes of the present invention.